We’ve seen in the last few decades, Elon musk and his companies have brought some of the most innovative methods in space exploration and on road transportation but it might not be just space and earth the billionaire genius maybe gazing on.
It’s also on the empire of the sky the world of aviation has been least progressive in the last few decades but that’s not because human beings could come up with better alternatives but it’s just because the alternatives would be unparalleled effects on either its financing or environmental sustainability but could that be answered with electricity how does Tesla’s plan to develop one of the most ambitious projects to take flight to the next level.
Unlike the automotive in interplanetary ambitions of Elon Musk, We have limited knowledge of what to expect from the Tesla Electric plane. We will explain, Does Tesla have plans for the aviation industry, will it be better than a conventional planes.
What are Tesla’s Plans for the Aviation Industry?
Elon Musk Revealed Tesla Electric Airplane. Tesla is ford with its on road transportation you can find thousands of videos and leaks about the innovations with their on road EVS but Tesla plane seems like something that would take a lot of time that’s not worth to wait but contradictory to these Elon musk himself stated that he’s thinking about producing and efficient Electric plane. Musk said that the plane would be VTOL or simply something that can take off vertically.
He also confirmed that he plans to make it as supersonic jet as observed from his interviews but just looking on the bright side it is not enough to state how well it can perform looking into the huge problems and developments needed for the project is yet another signification that Tesla is seriously considering.
Elon states the ability they have for Tesla plane is not just an economical problem but barriers of efficiency and resources. Tesla is going for a full capacity plane there have been multiple studies and patents presented by car manufacturing companies like Tesla and Hyundai for prototype the cars they could carry 3 or 4 people on air.
Since these are companies other than Tesla that invent such technologies it would bring the needed competition for Tesla to present their best results past.
Better than a Conventional Plane
We have a problem with our planes and no it’s not the lack of innovation but it’s a lack of practicality and expense. Take the Concorde for example when it came out in the 80’s it could do a New York to London flight in just 3.5 hours but even though this was practical in a countless problems especially with the fuel prices and damage could be done to the ozone layer.
It was twice as fast as the speed of sound which means it was considerably noisy and needed extra care for take offs and landings. The flight was soon stopped because of these problems and we seem to have hit the limit in aviation unless we try to use an electric plane, electric planes run on battery it could be a lot cheaper we can also reduce the manufacturing cost would not have a ridiculously high maintenance costs as traditional planes.
According to musk he also plans to make the take offs more efficient by limiting the runway distance. If the plan to produce upward thrust which could then be redirected as forwarding thrust for movement the flight could practically take off like a drone. Since the upward thrust could be divided with multiple propellers, it would be used to limit the noise production from take-off. This is also practically possible as the estimated power for an aircraft to take off would be just 400 watt hours per kilogram. Tesla is also working on improving its battery capacity.
Unlike conventional planes the tesla electric plane would be supersonic without the problems we have currently this means that transportation would be much faster and can reduce the travel period by an approximated 50 percent.
The Problems
When we’re talking about the Tesla planes we can’t ignore some of the challenges that lays ahead that Tesla has to overcome. The biggest problem with any electric plane would be the battery this is something Elon Musk has talked about very often, as one of the biggest barriers to Tesla Plane. Even though batteries are powerful they can only store limited supply of energy and unlike fuels which can transport and transfer in a very limited time it’s just not possible with electricity.
Tesla is working on improving their battery capacities and according to musk there might be possibilities of creating more efficient batteries in just a couple of years then there’s the fact that flights can have pit stops. Even if you have a full battery on your Tesla car you might have to make a stop or 2 if you’re having a cross country road trip now imagine flying hundreds of feet in the sky over nations in a single foot fortunately multiple companies are working on ways to make batteries more efficient without bulking up their size and it should be a relief for anyone looking forward to the Tesla plane.
However it is not just the battery capacity that the airlines would have problems with but it’s also the safety fuel tanks in a plane had multiple safeguards to make sure that it doesn’t get damaged and even if it does get damaged there are steps to reduce that magnitude, however since the electric plane is still in its very early stages there’s just not enough research nor certification to provide a protective protocol if something does happen to the battery. It’s also really expensive to regularly check for faults in the battery compared to just checking the fuel pipes under traditional plane.
The conventional plane also has options to dump fuel something goes wrong while taking off or landing to minimize explosive damages but if the battery catches fire there’s no way you can just dump the battery out of the plane and away from the passengers.
Can Tesla solve the problems of all Electric Planes?
Pretty much all problems have a solution as long as there is time we humans will make solutions that are efficient and simple. This can be expected with Tesla. The problems of an electric plane are not tremendous either. It’s already been proven that we can take off supersonic jets from a vertical take-off. It is also possible that electric planes will travel for limited distances but only with a limited speed of fewer than 40 kilometres per hour.
It was exactly what people used to say about electric cars when they were slow and low mileage, then tesla change the world of electric automobiles. The same thing can be done for planes. Musk also stated that to overcome the problems he plans on merging the facilities of Tesla with the aero engineers from Space X.
He also stated that the prototypes of flying cars can be practical or over the biggest problems with batteries are being worked on every day.
It is also expect the tesla plane to be immensely government approved and funded as it would help nations to adapt to a greener transportation. Just like Space X cooperates with NASA government aviation departments can also contribute with Tesla to make aviation more efficient effective and cheaper but speaking of price you might have to wait a few more years to have ridiculously cheap flights as Tesla with still need to make the money back that they invested for research in its initial years.
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